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Magazine Spring life span?

For any of your carry pistols where the magazine is kept full almost always, how often do you need to replace the spring? Obviously I'd rather not wait until I start having failures, but dont want to just change for the sake of changing.

I guess it could depend on the make, but is there a general rule to go by? Thanks

Springs wear out by the cycle of compressing and releasing tension. The more you use it the more frequently you will need to replace. That said, unless you shoot thousands of rounds a month, the spring will last a long time. If you just have a bunch of magazines stored full, the spring would probably last a hundred years.

lifespan of springs

Originally Posted by camiller

Springs wear out by the cycle of compressing and releasing tension. The more you use it the more frequently you will need to replace. That said, unless you shoot thousands of rounds a month, the spring will last a long time. If you just have a bunch of magazines stored full, the spring would probably last a hundred years.

A good rule of thumb is that you should never store your magazines loaded to capacity. Some will tell you this is bunk, but I have witnessed the spring-memory issue on multiple firearms from multiple manufacturers. It's best to store them with 1-3 rounds short of full capacity, carrying will be your exception obviously.

I always buy extra magazines and I have exercised the habit of rotating those magazines out once a week. This helps relax those mag springs so they aren't constantly wanting to release that stored up energy from being loaded. Since magazines don't compress in a uniform fashion, it's easy for the springs to develop weak points. I don't have an answer as to why in the physics, but it happens.

My military issue Beretta 92FS mags, brand new when we got them, lasted about 2 weeks fully loaded then went to crap immediately. The Italian magazines for the same pistol worked flawlessly for 10 months rotating on a 2-week basis. I've had Glock 30 magazine springs go bad without a reason as to why, Glock took care of me. The same goes for my M-16/AR mags, I rotated the loaded ones out weekly when I worked with them.

CZ magazines, same issue after 2 weeks without rotation. Para Ordnance LDA mags, same issue after just 3 days. Sig Sauer mags, same issue but those took 6 weeks fully loaded stored in one heck of a humid location (not mine either). Ruger 22 magazines have been the worst for me, don't store those loaded at all due to their unpredictability on spring-memory; some will have no issues and some will fail within just a few days, it's boggled me for a while that we had this happen on brand new mags.

A good rule of thumb is that you should never store your magazines loaded to capacity. Some will tell you this is bunk, but I have witnessed the spring-memory issue on multiple firearms from multiple manufacturers. It's best to store them with 1-3 rounds short of full capacity, carrying will be your exception obviously.

I always buy extra magazines and I have exercised the habit of rotating those magazines out once a week. This helps relax those mag springs so they aren't constantly wanting to release that stored up energy from being loaded. Since magazines don't compress in a uniform fashion, it's easy for the springs to develop weak points. I don't have an answer as to why in the physics, but it happens.

My military issue Beretta 92FS mags, brand new when we got them, lasted about 2 weeks fully loaded then went to crap immediately. The Italian magazines for the same pistol worked flawlessly for 10 months rotating on a 2-week basis. I've had Glock 30 magazine springs go bad without a reason as to why, Glock took care of me. The same goes for my M-16/AR mags, I rotated the loaded ones out weekly when I worked with them.

CZ magazines, same issue after 2 weeks without rotation. Para Ordnance LDA mags, same issue after just 3 days. Sig Sauer mags, same issue but those took 6 weeks fully loaded stored in one heck of a humid location (not mine either). Ruger 22 magazines have been the worst for me, don't store those loaded at all due to their unpredictability on spring-memory; some will have no issues and some will fail within just a few days, it's boggled me for a while that we had this happen on brand new mags.

Hmmm...just thinking that if I check all the handguns and rifles in the house and have to rotate 'em bullets religiously, I might spend two weeks doing it and then it is time to rotate them again...Maybe I should just ask my hubby to empty them all and just buy some more magazines for the ones that we carry...

I'm 75 yrs old, have been with guns and gunners all my life including a 20 yr tour in the military. I have never seen a magazine spring worn out from being loaded. I have seen some rusted through from neglect or fouled with dirt and foreign objects, but never one worn out from compression. It's possible to happen from repeated compression/decompression, but I seriously doubt any normal user here needs to worry.

As far as springs go, there's a few common reasons they fail. Bad material is obviously one. If the spring wire is not appropriate, it may eventually fail. Even if the material is correct, it can fail due to a poor stress relieving process. Another is over compression. Got a magazine designed to hold 15, but you find that if you push hard enough that you can stuff another one in there (or you fail, but tried really hard)... Another failure cause is due to cycle count. There's only so many cycles that they can go before performance drops off (it's usually a pretty big number though). A properly engineered and manufactured spring should not fail, or take a set, from being in the compressed state for extended periods of time. If it does, there was something wrong with it. If it fails from being cycled through the whole range of compression all the time, well, that's just the nature of the beast. :-)